Freeport: Tales of Freeport

I run a Living Arcanis campaign, which also contains Freeport. With a wealth of material at my disposal, I decided to pick up Tales of Freeport (TOF) to see how I could fit it into my campaign. I should point out that this is a long playtest review that contains spoilers galore. To help clarify what I did differently in my campaign, I will use a PLAYTEST tag.

The first adventure, Soul of the Serpent for PCs of 5th to 7th level, is a sequel of sorts to the original Freeport adventure trilogy. We find the former High Priest of the God of Knowledge (once known as Thuron and now known as the serpent person K'Stallo) skulking around in Freeport in human guise as the unimaginatively named Steel. His goal is to unite the serpent people through the teachings of Hitthkai, a peaceful sect that worships Yig. There is another, rival serpent priest named Ffashethh who preaches the way of Sskethvai, a more violent sect that is actually a front for the diabolical cult of the Unspeakable One. Ffashethh is actually a shapeshifting Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign cultist known as Corwin Laxton.

The PCs stumble into this mess when looking for Matthias Brack's daughter, who was captured as a sacrifice for the Sskethvai. With K'Stallo's help, the PCs hopefully rescue the girl, kill the bad guys, and escape before the Unspeakable One is summoned.

There are a few things that struck me as pointless in this adventure, not the least of which is the pages upon pages of information on what PCs might do to find the damsel in distress (like a listing of every organization who might help them out) and much less focus on what happens when the PCs finally find the bad guys. K'Stallo's people may or may not show up, the bad guys may or may not escape, and the climactic showdown between the Unspeakable One and Yig himself is optional. The adventure lacks focus and clarity -- the summary I gave above of all the NPCs and their motivations is more than you get from the adventure itself. For example, the name of Laxton's serpent man persona (Ffashethh) is only mentioned in passing.

One other thing: this adventure uses recycled maps from one of the other Freeport adventures, including the same room descriptions. In other words, it's recycling content, content that could have been used for something else entirely.

PLAYTEST: I used only the second half of the adventure and focused on the exciting parts. The Unspeakable One was summoned -- and Yig showed up to do battle. K'Stallo secretly attends the sacrifice in the arena, leading a surprise attack on Ffashethh's serpent people. This made the adventure very short but very exciting. Ironically, a fireball from the party's sorcerer did the job for Ffashethh when he accidentally killed all the hostages, summoning the Unspeakable One.

Overall this adventure gets a 3 out of 5. Not great but salvageable.

The Last Resort is supposedly an adventure for character of any level, although the text indicates 3rd through 6th level. It is basically a series of timed events that take place in an inn (the Last Resort, get it?). Encounters range from an assassination attempt to a kidnapping attempt by the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign, a game of chance with high stakes to a jilted husband, ghostly vengeance and a risen mummy. There's a lot going on here, and it all happens in fifteen-minute increments.

PLAYTEST: I changed the identities and names of the various NPCs but kept the events the same. To keep the action moving, Henry Tranco ran a game of chance with the PCs involved. I had the PCs play Three-Dragon Ante between every fifteen-minute increment, which kept the game interesting. The events in this adventure actually had tremendous repercussions throughout the rest of the campaign. I converted the mummy into a samat (a powerful serpent person from Nyambe) named Ffashethh, leading into the Soul of the Serpent adventure. Elijah Quelch, who is a minor dealer interested in the mummy, became a major recurring villain in the campaign. All in all, it was a great adventure...even though it's really more of an outline.

This adventure gets a 3 out of 5. It's got all the right ingredients but very little direction and again seems to miss the point -- why have a gambler play a high stakes game in a room "off camera" when the PCs could be directly involved?

Cut-Throat's Gold is for PCs of 4th through 7th level. I ran this adventure first, as it ended up being the location of the aforementioned mummy.

PLAYTEST: Because I had a lizardfolk PC in my campaign, this was a perfect hook for the party to visit his hometown. I also combined the city of Saltmarsh (converted to Sulfurmarsh from the DMG II) with this adventure. The PCs became quickly frustrated with the random encounters, even though I found them all very amusing. I converted Thomas Hariot the necromancer into a Death Master (a class from the Dragon Compendium) and gave him an undead minion, an Entomber, as a companion. Coupled with some nasty necromancer spells, a hostile lizardfolk tribe, and communication difficulties, this adventure transformed from a merely passable jungle encounter to a memorable battle.

The PCs really enjoyed the outcome of this adventure. I give it 4 out of 5.

Fair Salvage is an adventure for character levels 7 through 9. There is virtually no combat in this adventure, so the level ratings don't really apply. A group of alien beings known as Strangers invades Freeport with the intent of retaking artifacts stolen from one of their beached ships. It turns out the huge cannons that defend Freeport actually belonged to these Strangers and they want them back. And they're willing to do anything to retrieve them.

Fair Salvage is basically an investigation, another one of those boring adventures where the PCs show up too late for any action. The PCs, especially if they're Freeporters, are in a no-win situation - they won't want to hand over the cannons. And given that the Strangers have killed several people already, the odds that the PCs will be fighting mad are high. The other problem is that the PCs have a final "negotiation" with the Strangers in front of a ship wielding the same magical siege cannons that defend Freeport. Or to put it another way, the ship is immune to everything the PCs throw at it, the Strangers are ultra-powerful, they want cannons that Freeport would never voluntarily give up, and the adventure's resolution is...to not provide one.

The adventure's discussion of the Strangers skips the political implications of a nation essentially giving up its nuclear weapons (by force, I might add) and instead dwells on the possibility of the PCs negotiating a sweet deal for themselves, an all-out invasion by the Strangers, and the Strangers settling in Freeport. There's absolutely no evidence up to this point that the Strangers would settle in Freeport, but the adventure hurdles forward with more text about how the Strangers will make Freeport's serpent people look benevolent in comparison...

This is one of those adventures that can wreck a campaign. Super powerful aliens who apparently couldn't be bothered to retrieve their weapons for the past hundred years or so suddenly show up, want their weapons back, and the PCs don't really have a clear path to deal with it. This is perfectly acceptable for an adventure; after all, moral quandaries are what great role-playing is made of. What's not so great is that the adventure doesn't provide any real guidelines about actually resolving the problem and instead dwells on the alien invasion angle.

PLAYTEST: I converted the Strangers into an alien race known as the Fihali, which had an established history in the Arcanis game. I also had the PCs show up during one of the Strangers' raids, as opposed to investigating the murders after the fact, just to inject some action into the adventure. When the tense negotiations finally happened, one PC (also a Fihali) sacrificed the party, thereby preventing an ensuing war. Both sides agreed to work together to save Arcanis.

This adventure is the weakest of the bunch. Big ideas with poor execution: 2 out of 5.

After the adventures follow Plots and Places, basically adventure hooks. I used A Stunning Likeness, about a renowned sculptor, as the plot seed for another adventure involving a medusa (you're shocked, I know). I didn't use any of the others plots, thirteen in all. The Plots are fine for what they are, with some more interesting than others. 3 out of 5.

PLAYTEST: As for Places, I used all of them. Falthar's Curios, a magic shop, figured prominently in my game as a contact for one of my PCs and it was Falthar who was a victim of the above Strangers in Fair Salvage. I also used the Salon Du Masque and the Countess D'Amberville. In fact, I enjoyed the connection to Castle Amber so much I ran a conversion of that Basic D&D adventure. The Countess eventually died, but she was a constant thorn in the PCs sides for years. 5 out of 5

The book wraps up with Rules You Can Use. There is one new skill (Shadowing), new uses for existing skills like Knowledge and Profession, firearms rules, and prestige classes: Freeport Merchant, Ship's Captain, and Gambler. Two of those prestige classes now have official versions in Wizards of the Coast supplements, rendering most of the info redundant. I did use the Gambler class though, if only to stat out Henry Tranco. 3 out of 5.

Overall, Tales of Freeport is full of good ideas but has a somewhat unpolished execution. The book could easily have been twice the size and dealt with some of the interesting plots in more detail, while at the same time excising recycled content from old adventures to make space.